According to Mark Engle and Will Brown, the
answers are ever-evolving. However, one of the
single greatest factors affecting the performance
of any association’s leadership is culture. In part
two of this series, Engle and Brown—spurred
by the question of how they would create an
ideal governance model—discuss how culture
is formed, taught, and supported by association
leadership.

Mark Engle: When we talk about board performance, I consider the anchor, the dependent
variable of it all, to be what drives organizational
performance. This brilliant scholar—that would
be you, Will—said, “Boards curate strategy and
embrace a culture driven by strong interpersonal
relationships.” Nancy Axelrod does a beautiful
job of unpacking the second element of this
when she talks about fostering a board culture
that promotes trust, teamwork, candor, and constructive conflict.

William Brown: So I will take just one half step
back. We were asked what our ideal governance
model is, correct? It’s a thoughtful group of
people who are willing to work together for the
mission of the organization. The problem is that
we never quite have that in a coherent or consistent way As you mentioned, it shifts and adjusts
over time. People bring a variety of things into
the room, but there’s this expectation that all of
the folks sitting around the table are going to be
attuned to the priorities of our organization without conflicts or biases, which isn’t always the
case. So, we have to figure out how we align the
folks in the room sufficiently so that they can
be coherent and build on a foundation of trust.

You’ve got to have some degree of trust amongthe members such that they can participate andengage in a way that really gets them focusedon the priorities It’s not my self-interest, or myparticular bias, or my particular perspectivethat’s driving us, but rather the interest of theorganization. That is the ideal governance modelMaybe that’s too simple, but much of what we’retrying to do is create the structures, find theparticipants, and align the participants in such away that they can get toward that ideal of reallyengaging.

Engle: But we have to consider, what does that
sense of engagement look like? What we’re
finding in boards these days is that there’s a
concern of passivity—concern that there are a
number of directors who may not say a word
throughout a board meeting, even if it’s a day
or two. But part of the question is, “Have we
used tools and techniques to encourage proper
engagement?” Some people are introverts -
they’re going to process, they’re going to listen,
they’re going to think, but they might not go
public with their opinions, especially considering that in that board room there are peers who
come together only three or four times a year,
perhaps. To expect certain personalities to speak
up may not be a realistic expectation. In fact,
Susan Cain, in her book Quiet, does a beautiful
job of dissecting that. We’ve got the extroverts
who speak up first and foremost, but what about
the input of the introverts? What techniques are
we using to drive their engagement? There are
some nice techniques out there—we’re going to
keep you in suspense because we don’t really
have time to get into all of them—but we are
trying some different techniques in the board
room to try to get balanced input and engagement because that’s what we want.

Brown: Culture then becomes an important wayto think about how we can create a space wherehether it’s a Fortune 500 company or a small credit union,the way an organization manages itself is a key determi-nant of its success. But which governance model is idealfor which organizations—and how do associations bothlarge and small determine how to ensure they are making the best strategicdecisions for their members and their industry?